WIP THREAD for October NEW USERS CONTEST

"Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Leggedy Beasties and things that go bump in the night"

Intent: To have fun for the Halloween month

This thread is intended to be used to share your progress or possible final submissions with the members of the community as well as those running the contest. Please feel free to post your images for advice and tips, to get feedback, or to even just simply show off your hard work! :) Throughout the month myself and others will be popping in to give help and advice as you work to make your creative visions for the contest come to life.

We have people standing by to give you hints and tips,

When working on this image, or indeed any image, it may help to start by either picturing the type of image you would like to make or by browsing the net and seeing what inspires you.

You can interpret the Halloween theme any way you wish, the more different interpretations of the theme, the more fun the contest becomes.

We are not putting up any specific tutorials on the subject at the start of the contest, We will be following the thread carefully, and will insert tutorials as and when we feel that there is a need for them, when people ask for advice.

"We would like to thank Khory who has graciously decided to sponsor this months contest" She will be awarding a special prize to the winners of this months "Halloween"contest. To view some of Khory's items please see her store front hereKhory's Store

Comments

Ok, my first attempt so far, decided to work on making a zombie, total noob at this so dont expect much, started from the base model, main noticeable modifications are the eyes and teeth, may do some more work on them though as not 100% about them, any tips for me are welcome :)

well its the mouth thats bugging me most, i've got the top teeth in the correct position, though everytime i try to get the bottom row in a good position they drag the gums into view with them, think i've gotten an ok balance though still a little unsure.

Also any tips on making the skin look a little more, well dead and older, wrinkles decay etc...

genesis, been doing a bit of work on the skin and clothes too, got nice skin texture simply by opening a 250x250 blank texture and splatting it with some spray paint on paint, quite enjoying my work so far :)

SickleYield's conversion of DieTrying's morphs: http://www.sharecg.com/v/58198/View/11/Poser/DieTryings-182-V4-Morphs-for-Genesis
Great for things ranging from multiple ethnicities to simple morph adjustments. For your purposes, using Full body -> Distort will help make something asymmetrical, perfect for an undead who's figure is probably a little "off". A good set to get even if you weren't doing a zombie render.

EvilInnocence's Torn Shirt for V4: http://www.evilinnocence.com/torn-shirt-for-v4.html
Daz 4's autofit function will allow you to use clothes from some other figures. A tattered shirt should work well and oddly enough it's one of the few things where errors wouldn't be as big of a problem since this is for a zombie.

3-d-c's The Streets (multiple parts): http://www.sharecg.com/v/41337/View/11/Poser/The-Streets---Part-02
The Streets is a full set of parts for urban areas which could work well for a zombie apocalypse. The linked one is an endroad so it works well as a standalone as opposed to downloading a road and still needing to get buildings.

For once, I've started a proper render already for this, rather than just saying it looks exciting and not bothering.

Hallowe'en is very much in my bag because I love doing Pagan styled images, being a bit of a lazy witch myself. My image melds traditional ideas of Samhain, a Celtic Festival of the Dead upon which the original Hallowe'en customs are thought to have derived, and the current trend of a scary witchy character. I have ideas of how I want the final image to look and I am going to have to pay special attention to lighting. Lighting is my favourite thing in the world these days and I am loving playing with different ideas, some of which don't conform to the norm.

u1bd2005_2: Bump and/or displacement maps would help give the skin some texture. Cranking up their values (in the surfaces tab) might work well for a zombie. You can also play with the Aged morph that's part of the DieTrying morph set that ZamuelNow recommended. If I were trying to make a zombie, I'd use a "regular" skin texture and add a diffuse color to it, instead of starting with a blank texture--but your way is also valid, so do whatever suits you (I probably couldn't paint a decent skin texture for the life of me).

bartman23: I love it! I've rendered Trollkids a couple of times myself. :) Can't wait to see where you go with this one.

wilmap: Sorry you won't be joining us, Wendy (Aww, not even a trick-or-treating render? Doesn't need to be something gruesome...). Hope to see you in November's contest.

In case anyone is missing the tutorials that usually come with these WIP threads, here's a link to mine...still a work in progress, but hopefully you find it helpful. It explains how to use virtually any hair prop or figure on Genesis: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5646/ Anyone else have any tips to share, on any topic? :)

General question: we have this contest, Rawn's contest (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/8813/), the PC monthly render challenge, and the forthcoming PC anniversary render contest, all with similar themes. And I wouldn't be surprised to see more Halloween contests crop up this month (actually, I bet there are already others I'm missing). Can we submit our entries for this contest to others, assuming it's okay with the sponsors of those contests?

genesis, been doing a bit of work on the skin and clothes too, got nice skin texture simply by opening a 250x250 blank texture and splatting it with some spray paint on paint, quite enjoying my work so far :)

You're off to a good start, but the image map size seems a bit small if you try and do a closeup. I made a Zombie character a couple years ago using M4 and morphs++. I duplicated and renamed the image maps for M4 and edited them in Photoshop to provide a more "zombie" like appearance. If you edit the image maps, I cannot stress enough that you need to rename them so as to avoid overwriting the original files!

I think Mr Demon is looking in disgust at his birthday present. Oh no, another pink dagger from grandma.

I would say if you want the dagger to be a focal point then set up a separate light for it and assuming the blade is silver, make the light fairly bright with a short focal length and a cone that just covers the blade. The rest of the lighting looks great. Dark and brooding.

The kid was too much a child when I saw it back the next day - bit disturbing.. and don't know what to do with it; I like the child version but it may be too... mmmm... graphical... So I changed some features, for now... Don't know if I'm still working on a halloween theme - it is what I think disturbing enough but is it halloween? I'm dutch so halloween for me is pumpkin. Dutch people don't use pumpkin :) so if I'm going the wrong direction please tell me.

I notice that when you start a 'project' like this instead of playing around: I hit walls - big time :)

Lighting is gonna be a pain/challenge - I've been reading the earlier thread/contest about lighting and need it again and read a lot more!
It is so tempting to pick a preset and place it but then I still don't know anything about lighting so this old dog has to learn new tricks but his brain isn't that keen anymore, so Sas: I'm working on it but in an odd way it is intimidating... It is hard enough and then in English too...
And did I mention I noticed I lost some brain cells in time

For the scene I went to the pet-store and got me some snakes and the first one is in ; is there a trick that I can use for 'draping' the snakes?
There are shapes built-in but they are all going the wrong direction, in all directions lol. And I need them on the floor and around the kid crawling. The one I placed I followed every spine and bend/rotate/etc. Although i love the tedious bit there must be something easier?
And is there a solution that I can stop the snake from shining that much - I want it little bit less shiny and a more earthy feel, dusty.

The ground is not in place yet - I got me a house too! Superdeal on little Raven Nest. But when I import it in the scene... all is elevated and too big, is that normal or is that the correct size? I got confused and got lost in my own garden :) so removed it for later on.
Placed some of Lisa's plants and experimented with DOF. Was it meant for the mushrooms to be that big?

Still have to read about how to get this beautiful clouds/moon in the background that I see in others. And some mist/fog would be nice.
But this Uber-thing; uberenvironment/uberpoint/ubersurface/etc.... I don't know how I'm gonna pick that up.

As I said I hit brick walls big time and that has to do with 'what I WANT to do and what I CAN do'. I've worked in graphics for a reasonable amount of time, later on PS became my main tool. At first I thought DAZ was gonna be an extra utility for me but it starts out to be a main app and PS is gonna be the utility. Maybe you've noticed I have no discipline in workflow - because I have none. Any advice on workflows would be appreciated. Or any advise - please.

Ah Ha! I see you got past the surfaces issue. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Unfortunately, the surfaces came with this model - I made no changes to it. :( All I did was put it in the scene and add the bucket and lighting. But I'm getting better - this is the first time I've used a prop with a character! :)

The kid was too much a child when I saw it back the next day - bit disturbing.. and don't know what to do with it; I like the child version but it may be too... mmmm... graphical... So I changed some features, for now... Don't know if I'm still working on a halloween theme - it is what I think disturbing enough but is it halloween? I'm dutch so halloween for me is pumpkin. Dutch people don't use pumpkin :) so if I'm going the wrong direction please tell me.

I notice that when you start a 'project' like this instead of playing around: I hit walls - big time :)

Lighting is gonna be a pain/challenge - I've been reading the earlier thread/contest about lighting and need it again and read a lot more!
It is so tempting to pick a preset and place it but then I still don't know anything about lighting so this old dog has to learn new tricks but his brain isn't that keen anymore, so Sas: I'm working on it but in an odd way it is intimidating... It is hard enough and then in English too...
And did I mention I noticed I lost some brain cells in time

For the scene I went to the pet-store and got me some snakes and the first one is in ; is there a trick that I can use for 'draping' the snakes?
There are shapes built-in but they are all going the wrong direction, in all directions lol. And I need them on the floor and around the kid crawling. The one I placed I followed every spine and bend/rotate/etc. Although i love the tedious bit there must be something easier?
And is there a solution that I can stop the snake from shining that much - I want it little bit less shiny and a more earthy feel, dusty.

The ground is not in place yet - I got me a house too! Superdeal on little Raven Nest. But when I import it in the scene... all is elevated and too big, is that normal or is that the correct size? I got confused and got lost in my own garden :) so removed it for later on.
Placed some of Lisa's plants and experimented with DOF. Was it meant for the mushrooms to be that big?

Still have to read about how to get this beautiful clouds/moon in the background that I see in others. And some mist/fog would be nice.
But this Uber-thing; uberenvironment/uberpoint/ubersurface/etc.... I don't know how I'm gonna pick that up.

As I said I hit brick walls big time and that has to do with 'what I WANT to do and what I CAN do'. I've worked in graphics for a reasonable amount of time, later on PS became my main tool. At first I thought DAZ was gonna be an extra utility for me but it starts out to be a main app and PS is gonna be the utility. Maybe you've noticed I have no discipline in workflow - because I have none. Any advice on workflows would be appreciated. Or any advise - please.

Hi Bart you’re doing fine it looks good, the lights can be difficult but you will learn.
I used mostly an existing light set and experiment with the colors and some times with the directions
About the snake maybe there are some free pose somewhere.
The glossy of the snake go to surfaces, Specular lower the Stength.

I think Mr Demon is looking in disgust at his birthday present. Oh no, another pink dagger from grandma.

I would say if you want the dagger to be a focal point then set up a separate light for it and assuming the blade is silver, make the light fairly bright with a short focal length and a cone that just covers the blade. The rest of the lighting looks great. Dark and brooding.

Thanks for the feedback. At the moment I am not sure what I want the focal point of the render to be, I was just seeing if I could create a nice lighting effect using only one light in the scene.

you might try and add some shadow to your lighting on your figure and save as a png, then overlay it on your background that will also help with the skin..right now it looks like he is floating ... he needs to be grounded...